Policies Standards and Guidelines for Compliance#

There are a variety of policies, standards and guidelines that organizations can put in place to help ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Depending on the industry and business, these may include internal policies and procedures, external standards such as those promulgated by regulatory agencies, or voluntary guidelines issued by trade associations or other groups. By having and enforcing such policies, standards and guidelines, businesses can help minimize the risk of non-compliance and the potential penalties that may result.

Policies A policy is a high-level expression of an organization’s views, aims, and objectives, as well as the broad means for achieving them in a specific subject area. A policy should be concise (which is strongly advised) and at a high level. Because the policy is established at a high level, companies must adopt standards, guidelines, and procedures that provide people affected by the policy with one or more options for executing the policy and accomplishing the organization’s business objectives or purpose.

Standards - are necessary activities, acts, rules, or laws that are meant to give policies the support structure and explicit direction they need to be relevant and successful. They are frequently costly to administer and, as a result, should be used sparingly.

Guidelines — Guidelines are more broad statements intended to achieve policy objectives by providing a framework within which procedures can be implemented. Guidelines are recommendations while standards are mandated.

Procedures – Procedures detail how the policy and its accompanying standards and guidelines will be executed in a real-world setting.

A general program policy establishes the enterprise’s strategic direction for global behaviour and allocates resources for its implementation. This encompasses information management, conflict of interest, employee conduct requirements, and basic security measures.

Topic-specific policy tackles issues of particular significance to the organization. E-mail policy, Internet usage policy, phone usage, physical security, application development, system maintenance, and network security are examples of topic-specific policies.

Policy for Specific Systems/Applications Management choices to safeguard a single application or system are the subject of system/application-specific policies. Controls developed for the financial management system, accounts payable, business expenditure forms, employee appraisal, and order inventories are examples of system/application-specific policies.

There is just as much danger in talking too much as there is in saying too little when formulating policy. The more sophisticated and comprehensive the policy, the more frequently it must be updated, and the more difficult the training process for those who must follow it.

The policy should identify the policy’s aim or business purpose, the policy statement, the scope of impacted parties/locations/legal organizations, and the individual duties of individuals responsible with policy implementation and enforcement. Because it is at the highest level, the policy allows for management discretion in the actual execution of procedures to satisfy the policy’s goal.

In addition to the mandated penalty score system, the recommendations include an incentive for proactive crime prevention. Management must demonstrate “due care” in building an effective compliance program. The core functions inherent in most compliance systems are captured by seven elements:

Create policies, standards, and procedures to guide employees.
Appoint a high-level manager to ensure policy, standards, and procedures compliance.
Use caution when delegating discretionary authority to staff.
Ensure that compliance policies are followed.
Inform all workers and others about the standards and processes.
Consistently enforce policies, standards, and procedures through appropriate disciplinary actions.
Create processes for adjustments and revisions in the event of a violation.

A policy is not a thorough and detailed statement of the problem and each step required to put the policy into action. A policy mandating access control for distant users, for example, has gone beyond its scope if there is a discussion about passwords, password length, password history, and so on. Standards and recommendations define the technology and procedures to be employed in system security. Procedures are the explicit procedures needed to complete a certain activity or process.

Many businesses provide overall information security guides, rules, handbooks, practices and procedures, and other publications of a similar kind. These documents are a tightly knit collection of policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures. Although such papers are valuable, it is critical to distinguish between a policy and its implementation components.

Policy needs management approval, whereas standards, guidelines, and procedures can be changed as needed to accommodate changing situations. By providing different methods to the implementation process, standards, guidelines, and procedures encourage flexibility and cost-effectiveness.